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Journalism of Courage
The Supreme Court will hear on November 4 a plea by the Andaman & Nicobar Islands administration challenging the anticipatory bail plea granted to its former chief secretary Jitendra Narain, who is facing allegations of gangrape and sexual abuse.
Seeking an urgent hearing of the matter, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Union Territory administration told a bench presided by Chief Justice of India U U Lalit that it had evidence that Narain “has tampered with the evidence”. “He issues a direction in writing to the private operator who was maintaining CCTV cameras that you remove them… and that has been done,” said Mehta and urged the court to take it up on Tuesday.
The CJI, however, said it will be listed on Friday, November 4.
The Delhi High Court had granted Narain interim protection from arrest on October 20. The relief was continued by the High Court at Calcutta Circuit Vacation Bench at Port Blair on October 21.
In its plea, the UT administration said that as per the statements of the victim and protected witnesses under sections 161 and 164 of the CrPC, “the present case appears to be a case of ‘habitual sexual predation’ where the respondent accused…under the weight and power of his authority along with another senior government officer [Labour Commissioner-co-accused], used to induce and exploit innocent victims on the pretext of getting them jobs”.
It said that “in light of such heinous and grave allegations of gang rape, shockingly, the accused was granted interim protection from arrest [transit anticipatory bail] till 28.10.2022 by the…Delhi High Court” and “extended by the…Calcutta High Court till 14.11.2022, on the completely false and illusive pretext that there was no forum available to him for moving his anticipatory bail petition as the Circuit Bench of the…High Court at Port Blair was on vacation”.
The UT administration said that Narain approaching the Delhi and Calcutta high courts “instead of approaching the jurisdiction Sessions Court at Port Blair, with a plea that no forum was available to him on account of vacation is nothing but a blatant attempt of forum shopping and abuse of process of law”.
It added that though both Delhi and Calcutta high courts “were duly appraised by the prosecution about the availability of jurisdictional session court”, they “had neither considered the same nor even mentioned the said fact in their respective impugned orders”.
The UT contended that the relief was granted to him “without considering the gravity and seriousness of the offence and the fact that evidence has come on record that the accused, by exercising his influence, has already started tampering with the evidence and influencing the witnesses”.
After the allegations came to light, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) suspended the 1990-batch IAS officer, who is currently posted as the Chairman and Managing Director of Delhi Finance Corporation. It also appointed advocate Rajat Nair, who is part of the SG’s legal team, as the special counsel to pursue the matter.
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